Tracklisted: Music From The Motion Picture

Much like the classic mixtape, Tracklisted presents a collection of songs under a selected theme, which you can check out below. Click on the provided Spotify playlist and listen to this week’s arrangement while you read a few words about the selections.

So judging by early reviews…Suicide Squad might be a dud. But despite how low their Rotten Tomatoes score sinks (it’s currently at a nice 31%), they’ll always have quite the soundtrack to look back on, one anchored by chart toppers such as Twenty One Pilots, Skrillex and Panic! At The Disco, but made cool through its wild collaborations — pairing people like Action Bronson and Dan Auerbach together — and informed inclusions (see: Grimes). And for the first time since Guardians of The Galaxy dropped its Awesome Mix: Volume 1, I feel like there’s a shot this soundtrack could CGI explode its way through movie screens and onto the Billboard charts.

That got me thinking. You won’t often find a genre so willing to go general populace in their selections, barring releases like a Fight Club (its grunginess just happened to line up with rock’s elite at the time) or a Pitch Perfect (considering they sing these popular songs). It’s comic book movies and teen movies which both lack the “song-must-meet-plot” filter of more dramatic fare.

Our playlist doesn’t start at crazy, though, it starts with “Star Spangled Man,” quite possibly my favorite musical moment from any superhero film. We have Steve Rogers forced, quite literally, into a song and dance, his beginning contribution to war time morale. But then we move right into “Vindicated,” every scene kid’s super-tune, and one firmly in the “inspired by the film” category. For Spider-Man 2, it would be Dashboard Confessional’s biggest Billboard hit, landing at #2 for alternative tracks, but beyond a music video with clips of Peter Parker and comic book formatting, it only hit on the outskirts of the film’s message.

Our contribution from Suicide Squad is a collaboration between Skrillex and Rick Ross, where they’re certain to drop that film title, and which certainly seems to play up the bombast with which “Jared Leto as The Joker” would imply. A few more notes on my selections:

I went more broadly with comic book movies, as to include a cut from Scott Pilgrim and a couple from Watchmen. On the latter, My Chemical Romance certainly didn’t enjoy the “Vindicated” bump as we’ll call it, but “Desolation Row” is certainly better than much of Danger Days. And the Bob Dylan track accompanies yet another of my favorite comic book film moments, that gorgeous intro sequence from Watchmen (which the rest of the film really struggled to match).

The Spawn soundtrack has often been compared to Judgement Night in its genre mix and the public reacted in much the same way: it would debut at #7 on the Billboard 200 and would stay on the charts for 25 weeks (sold 500,000 copies). Judgement Night peaked at #17 and put out 4 singles.

Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” is from Guardians, the tune accompanying that opening title drop, while “Time In A Bottle” is a great cue from X-Men: Days Of Future Past and breakout character Quicksilver.

I’ve placed a couple videos below to finish off the list, including the truly ridiculous “What We’re All About” from Sum 41 and Spider-Man. If you’re into Sum 41 deep cuts, this is an extended take on the back half of “Dave’s Possessed Hair/It’s What We’re All About.” Basically, while the original’s rap portion was a fun reward for those listening to the end of Half Hour Of Power (it also leads right into “Ride The Chariot To The Devil”) this was blown out to goofy Limp Bizkit levels. Kudos for working an actual scene from the film into the music video though. The second video is “Batdance,” because…well…obviously it needs to be here. “Shell Shock,” from the animated TMNT feature from a few years back, probably doesn’t need to be here, but it was certainly a cool moment for a kid like me to see Fueled By Ramen handling a film’s music. I can still remember Cute Is What We Aim For playing from a boombox in the film’s background.

And “Hero” and “Kiss From A Rose” may seem like silly inclusions, but both were major pop culture moments from their respective years, despite how bad that might appear from a distance.

Christopher Lantinen
Chris Lantinen is the owner and editor-in-chief of Modern Vinyl. Along with his modest collection of sad sounding records, he collects his share of soundtracks and previously adored indie up-and-comers. Chris is currently a professor of journalism and public relations at Edinboro University in the Erie, Pennsylvania area.